Made In Chelsea season 27 is back, and while the first episode was sprinkled with talks of on-off relationships and marital blips, it was one comment from Freddy Knatchbull that left us squirming in our seats.
Within the first 10 minutes, Freddy dropped the bombshell during a catch-up lunch that male and female friendships are nothing more than ‘fake.’
In the scene, newcomer Jack Taylor was seen insisting that his plus one at his brother's wedding was nothing more than a friend. After Jack explained that Freddy ‘doesn’t understand the concept of girl mates,' Freddy replied, ‘[They're] just fake. You both want to sleep with each other.’
When challenged about his friendship with Jazz Saunders – who decided against pursuing a relationship with Freddy – the MIC star said, ‘[She’s a friend] that I would want to go there with.’
Although intended harmlessly, Freddy’s comments reinforce an outdated and problematic concept. It’s the age old question: can men and women ever be just friends?
From the recent success of Netflix's One Day to TikTok's booming ‘friends to lovers’ trope, society has been programmed to think that romance will always evolve, if only two friends can spend enough time together. In 1989's When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal's Harry tells Meg Ryan's Sally, 'Men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.'
But while some friendships may manifest into more, the vast majority don’t.
I, like many women, have countless male friends. We go for weekend breaks away, spend nights drinking wine in living rooms, discussing the ins and outs of life. The real shocker comes when I reveal that plenty of these male friends are indeed straight. Heterosexual men, forging platonic relationships with a woman? Surely not.
Believe it or not, women don't exist purely as an aphrodisiac. Many men view the women in their life in a different vein than Freddy: with their friendship first. While Freddy views Jazz as his 'girl mate,' plenty of other's will see the star simply as their 'mate.'
Turns out, people can enjoy each other’s company without thinking about their genitals.
Exhibit A: Leondardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. After meeting on the set of Titanic, the duo have gone on to forge one of Hollywood’s strongest friendships. Despite their characters’ love story playing out onscreen, Kate and Leo have never presented as anything other than platonic to the world. Leo was reportedly present at Kate’s third wedding, walking her down the aisle. When Kate won a Golden Globe in 2009, she took the time to gush how she had ‘loved’ Leo for 13 years.
Elsewhere in Hollywood, Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg have been an unlikely pairing since meeting in 2008. 15 years later, they’re still going strong – with the rapper revealing last year how some of his biggest life lessons have come from the businesswoman. ‘Martha showed me how to excel at what I’m doing,’ he said, adding ‘That’s one thing about me and Martha’s relationship that I love, is that it unites people of all walks of life. They see two people that genuinely love each other.’
Last year, psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel addressed the age old dilemma while on an Instagram live. When asked whether women and men can ever just be friends, she said, ‘Absolutely – with good communication, boundaries, expectations, and an open mind. We’re blessed with the ability to weave many types of relationships, and friendship between men and women is a unique strand that needs to be valued highly.’
Of course, these kinds of relationships may bring a different set of questions than other friendships do. What happens when one of you gets into a serious relationship? Do innocent friendships then find themselves morphed into something else, underlined by narratives of jealously and competition? At some points, those friendships might take a bit more work – but they can exist.
Freddy may view his friends with the added side of sex, but that doesn’t mean all of us do. The reality is, we're not all dying to sleep with our pals.
Charlotte Roberts is a News and Entertainment Writer for Grazia, writing interviews and features around everything pop culture.